Doubt

The incredible fact that General Douglas MacArthur still does not know just what he is supposed to do, or how he is to do it, emerged last week from Australia. U.S. correspondents flatly reported that General MacArthur, five weeks after leaving Bataan, still lacks the authority to set up an adequate staff, plan an adequate campaign, and execute the plans.

For this state of affairs, there were two reasons: 1) General MacArthur had not received from Washington a clear, specific directive defining his command area and responsibilities; 2) he lacked clear authority to direct U.S. naval operations within his area, whatever it might be. The directive could come only from President Roosevelt; naval cooperation could come only from the Navy, by consent or by command of the President.

Dispatches from Australia clearly reflected the resultant delays and confusion at a time when the U.S. and Australia could risk neither. Cabled the New York Herald Tribune's Lewis Sebring Jr.: unless the situation is immediately corrected, "there may be serious consequences for the Allies in this part of the world. . . . One cannot be circulating constantly among the representatives of the two countries without seeing that something is wrong."

All this, in the week of Bataan's fall, was doubly harassing for Douglas MacArthur and the staff which had come with him from the Philippines. As soldiers, they might agree that nothing more could have been done to save Bataan. As men, they were bound to wish that more had been done. Their uncertain status in Australia did nothing to lighten their gloom.

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